Royal slams US, EU for excluding Jordan from talks

At a meeting with Meretz party chief Zahava Gal-On on Wednesday, Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan criticized the US and EU for excluding the Jordanians from the revived Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Prince Hassan, uncle to Jordan’s King Abdullah II, said the Americans and Europeans were treating the issue as a two-sided problem, according to a Channel 10 report. Jordan should be a full partner in negotiations between the sides, said the prince, since the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a regional problem, partly because the majority of Palestinians live in Jordan.

At the meeting in Amman, Jordan — held as a second round of negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians kicked off at an undisclosed location in Jerusalem — Gal-On expressed cautious optimism regarding renewed peace talks. She also spoke of the left-wing Meretz party’s vision for how a peace agreement would look.

“Meretz may be in the opposition,” said Gal-On at the meeting, “but [the party] will not be opposed to peace.” She added that “Netanyahu doesn’t have a majority for a political settlement in his coalition, but he does have a majority in the Knesset.”

Jordan is one of only two Arab nations to have made peace with Israel. According to statistics published by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in 2008, Jordan is home to some two million Palestinians.